Steve Coogan is sent on an all expenses paid vacation to cover the finest restaurants in northern England for
The Observer. After his girlfriend decides to take a trip to America, he asks his friend Rob Brydon to tag along. As they navigate the windy country back roads, eat fancy foods, and one up each other as they exchange many celebrity impression, the discrepancies between the two men begin to show, Coogan divorced and unsatisfied with his younger girlfriend and career and Brydon content with his wife and child and modest career. The Trip is edited down from a six part TV series and directed by Michael Winterbottom, who also directed the two actors in "Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story". Coogan and Brydon play themselves more or less in a highly improvised film and their rapport is clear. The movie is also a wonderful travelogue, containing picturesque shots of the British moors as well as many fine scenes of food preparation. The film does tend to wear thin after awhile, and the banter between Coogan and Brydon grows redundant. The also don't think it achieves the more serious goals it sets out to do, such as documenting Coogan's loneliness. I found this movie to be pleasant enough, but when a film, especially one of a comedic such as this, is upstaged by the scenery and the food on display, there is something fundamentally wrong with the material.
